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FACT CHECK
Airplanes

Fact check: Video shows plane's contrail filmed from above by another pilot

Portrait of Eleanor McCrary Eleanor McCrary
USA TODAY

The claim: Video does not show an airplane contrail

An April 18 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a video of a plane trailed by a wide plume of white smoke.

"They're spraying us," read the post. "Those are not contrails! I was born in the 70s and I know the difference in our skies. I remember real clouds and all."

It was shared over 7,000 times in a week.

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Our rating: False

The video shows a contrail from a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. In the right plane and weather conditions, it is possible for large contrails like the one in the video to form, experts told USA TODAY.

Video shows a large contrail from Boeing plane

Contrails, or condensation trails, are formed when extremely hot exhaust from jet engines is released at high altitudes, Kwasi Adjekum, an aviation professor at the University of North Dakota, said in an email to USA TODAY.

They have been the subject of the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory, which alleges that nefarious actors are spraying chemicals on the population to make people sick or elicit mind control. This theory has been repeatedly debunked. 

Fact check:No, airplane contrails are not being used to combat climate change

The contrail in this post captured the attention of The Weather Channel, National Geographic and The London Economic after pilot Lou Boyer uploaded it to YouTube on June 19, 2017.

Boyer was flying a Boeing 747 from Tokyo to Alaska when he saw the Dreamliner's contrail over eastern Russia, according to The London Economic. He filmed the plane as it passed about 1,000 feet below his own aircraft.

Boyer confirmed to USA TODAY the video seen in the Facebook post is the one he recorded. Boyer and Adjekum both identified the plane in the video as a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The angle of the video, weather conditions and type of aircraft made the contrails appear particularly large, Adjekum said.

"These wide-body aircraft have big engines, and the volume of exhaust from these engines can be copious," Adjekum said. "If there is high humidity at those altitudes, the magnitude of these contrails can be amplified."

Boyer told The London Economic there was high relative humidity that day, which, combined with the sunrise "gave this contrail a nice deep color as the contrail created its own shadow."

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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